


No Time To Regret

by goth_on_ham



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Angst, Future Fic, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-21
Updated: 2017-09-21
Packaged: 2019-01-03 21:37:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12155298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goth_on_ham/pseuds/goth_on_ham
Summary: Oswald is successful. He should be happy. But his regrets haunt him. He can't help but think of what could have been.





	No Time To Regret

**Author's Note:**

> A short piece I wrote for Nygmobblepotweek, day four: regret.
> 
> The title is from Back to Black by Amy Winehouse.

Oswald had plenty of regrets in his life. He tried not to dwell on them. He tried to focus on his successes. His triumphs. He liked to think they outnumbered his mistakes and failures.

Sometimes, in his more vulnerable, introspective moments, he had his doubts.

Sometimes he thought of what his life might be like if he had done this or that differently. He daydreamed, occasionally, about what it would be like to be a law-abiding citizen with a spouse and maybe a child or two. 

Not that he realistically ever wanted children, but at a certain age, one got curious, and one began to think about the legacy they would leave behind. They began to wonder what people would say about them after they were gone.

Oswald had no illusions that he was liked. He had given up on that particular delusion. When he died, he was sure the majority of people would scoff and say something along the lines of, “About time.”

These quiet, thoughtful moments where he reflected on such things rarely lasted for more than a drink or two, and it wasn't uncommon for them to be interrupted by some illegal business needing his attention. However, he drank by himself nearly every evening. Consequently, he found himself thinking about them more than he would like.

It disturbed him that when he pictured what life could have been like, the face of his spouse was nearly always borrowed from Edward Nygma. Or 'The Riddler’, as he ridiculously insisted on calling himself.

However, his imaginary husband wasn't Ed, not really. Ed wasn't so kind, so gentle. Oswald had thought he might be once, but he had been wrong. Although he supposed that had partly been due to how he had handled things. Maybe if he had taken things a little slower… Been a little less selfish… Ed could have been gentle with him. 

Maybe.

He told himself time and time again that it wasn't worth thinking about. However, when he was in a certain mood, he tended to think about it anyway.

He could get married if he wanted to. Gotham had no shortage of virile young men who would hop in the sack with anyone who offered them something shiny. But the thought of marrying someone who cared so little for him was intolerable. He would rather be alone.

Not that he hadn't had occasional moments of weakness. When he was melancholy, they occurred with briefer intervals between each other. They were short, loveless affairs that usually consisted of Oswald giving them a handjob and little else. A couple of times, he had let himself be bent over his desk and fucked. It wasn't unpleasant, during the act he even enjoyed it, but afterwards he was left feeling more alone than before they’d started.

He remembered their names and faces, but little else about them. They weren't like Ed.

He still remembered everything about him.

They had never even kissed, but Oswald had spent countless solitary evenings thinking about what it might have been like. 

He had never been kissed by a lover, so it took some imagination. He thought it would be warm, comforting, and far more satisfying than the entirety of all his half-hearted sexual encounters with good looking but shallow young men who were probably looking for a promotion or a favour rather than his sincere affection. 

He regretted falling for Ed. The hope and joy that it had initially inspired felt insignificant when compared to the heartache that had followed. He concluded, bitterly, that the only good thing that had come from his feelings for Ed was the harsh lesson that love was a weakness. It had taken him far too long to learn that, but eventually it had sank into his soul and blackened his heart.

More or less.

Besides his occasional moments of weakness, whenever he saw Ed, whether it was in person or in the papers, he felt his chest tighten. Just a little.

He didn't dare act on it. He didn't even dare acknowledge it for more than a second. He forced himself to stamp down his regrets and look forward, to the future. It was a lonely one, but one that held the promise of power. Respect. Infamy.

His chance at love was buried in the past. If it had ever been a real chance at all. He forced himself to remember this.

It was for the best. Even if Ed had been able to stomach the idea of being with him, Oswald knew he was unstable. If he didn't fuck things up, Ed would have. He hadn't acknowledged that at first, but it had been five years since he had fallen in love with him. Every time he saw Ed, he seemed to have descended deeper into madness and obsession. Oswald wondered if love would have changed that, or if things would have ended up that way regardless. Believing the latter helped him sleep at night.

Still, even if it wouldn't have worked out, even if his feelings had been doomed from the start, Oswald could not wholly erase what he had felt for Ed. It had shaped him. It was like Fish had once told him, when you had helped bring someone into being, it was a part of you. Forever.

He could tell himself that regret and love were weaknesses. He could try to bury his feelings for Ed in loveless one night stands. He could try to convince himself that he needed no one. Only himself. Most of the time, he managed to convince himself that he believed that, but not all the time. 

And the times where he couldn't were the hardest, they made his willfully shrivelled up heart long for something that was trapped in the past.

If he was being honest with himself, it wasn't that he wanted children, or a husband, or even a life that was deemed acceptable and law-abiding by society's impossibly high standards. He just wanted Ed. He just didn't want to be alone.

But he was.


End file.
